Coachella, Day 1

April 17, 2010


Photos by David Bevan & Paul Familetti

We made the weirdo pilgrimage to Coachella yesterday, driving to Indio from Los Angeles and into one of the more breathtaking/brainbreaking traffic jams we've ever seen. Traffic defined most of Day 1 actually, whether we were trying to enter the festival (took a few hours, prevented us from seeing Yeasayer and meeting up with the dudes in Sleigh Bells and Vampire Weekend, was a bummer) or throwing elbows to view Jay and Beyoncé on the big stage. Photos of a few more desert scenes after the jump, much more to come tomorrow and Monday.

If there was some kind of sartorial theme prevalent from one stage to the next, it was Native American. Men wore headdresses, women wore feathers and dreamweavers. Most of the time that was combined with swimwear, which seems to be part of the day-to-day uniform. Because we can't take our shirt off, we paid tribute to Pavement's upcoming set on Sunday night and wore New Balances with khakis. No we didn't, that would have been insane. It's outrageously hot out here.

Gil Scott-Heron

The Specials

Above are two photos of a dance party happening about 150 yards away from a very loud Them Crooked Vultures set. It was as though MTV's The Grind had been brought back and its set just happened to be bordered by three rock shows all happening simultaneously. No one seemed to notice. They grinded/ground instead.

Grizzly Bear

Vampire Weekend

Public Image Ltd.

Coachella, Day 1